The following day, the pair was striding through the forest. They had been doing so ever since early in the morning. It felt like a déjà vu to Maddie to walk again at Jörmun’s side through untamed mountain valleys. The difference was that they were no longer accompanied by Eloise, nor were they freezing in the cold breeze of a late fall. The mid-spring weather made the walk actually enjoyable and if she wasn’t stressed by the magic traps that her travel companion mentioned, she would've enjoyed it all more.

A few hours later, they paused to eat the sandwiches Maddie bought before they left the town behind. With nearly half of the day spent out, walking without reaching any destination, she could only wonder whether she should’ve brought more food and water.

“Do you know how much we have left to the destination?” she asked as she watched Jörmun go and stare ahead from the nearby viewpoint. There wasn’t much to look at, as the valley was succumbed in forests wherever there wasn’t a tear-shaped lake.

“Hard to tell.”

“What if we can’t make it back in time to the hotel? We should’ve bought a tent or something… We can’t just sleep outside, in plain air,” Maddie protested, thinking about how cold the nights still where in those regions.

Jörmun remained silent and thoughtful as his companion’s voice faded as a background noise. Where would they sleep was his least concern at that moment. He felt lost. He needed a guide of some sort.

But just as he sank deeper into the layers of his mind, something caught his attention. A distant song, like an echo, enchanted his ears. What picked up his interest, other than the beauty of the voice itself, was that it sung in the very old dialect that he was accustomed to.

Jörmun turned around and walked away. He went past Maddie and disappeared beyond the tall trees, his bright red hair flowing in the light breeze like a torch’s dancing fire.

“Hey! Where are you going? You didn’t even touch your sandwich,” the girl stood up and looked after the other. She tried to peek through the tree trunks, but they blocked her view rather than frame the silhouette she sought for.

Maddie packed the food and tossed it back into her backpack. After a quick sip of water, she readied herself and strode away from the boulder that served her as a lunching spot.

She wandered in the direction Jörmun took, but failed to catch any glimpse of him. She kept on walking for long enough to make herself stop and question whether she was headed in the right way. However, just as she was preparing to call for his name once more, she heard his voice; he was singing. She could recall the mesmerizing sound of it from the reenactment celebration.

Maddie hurried through the moss-covered ground, bruising her knees as she struggled to climb some of the larger rocks scattered in her path. She let herself guided by his singing voice. But as she got closer, she remarked how there was another sound accompanying his soothing tone; something far less gracious. A second voice that appeared to be altering Jörmun’s.

As soon as she reached a forest opening which shielded a small pond, Maddie stopped. She hid behind a tree trunk, not wanting to be spotted just yet. She carefully peeked from beyond it; she could see Jörmun’s unmistakable silhouette. He was accompanied by a person, smaller than himself, much like her own self. A female presence, radiating beauty and grace; she was dressed in a long, sheer dress, but her feet were bare. Her fair hair embraced her features and spread like a spider-web over the tree branches that appeared to be sprouting straight from her back.

“Branches that sprout from one’s back?” Maddie mused to self with a frown while hiding once again behind the tree. She had to blink a few times just to refresh the image from her mind before daring to stare again at the mysterious being.

Jörmun’s voice was becoming slowly but surely muffled by the displeasing, gurgling sound coming from his duet partner, though that was far from something Maddie would call a duet. It was hurting her ears.

However, as the pair made a spin in their slow dance, the fair maiden revealed her back to be nothing but a hole, resembling the texture of a broken tree bark from where the branches were  sprouting from. Maddie had not seen it wrong the first time and she wished she realized sooner what she was given to stare at. The being enchanting Jörmun with her horrid song was a huldra; a creature that one could only read about in Norse myths and stories.

Maddie was unable to recall much detail about the huldra at that moment, but she couldn’t see anything good coming out of her pairing with Jörmun. He must have been caught in her spell. There was no way someone would willingly listen to the horrible noise she was making.

Without much of a second thought, the girl jumped out from her hiding spot. She caught the huldra’s gaze; it was piercingly menacing, annoyed that someone dared to disturb her ritual. It made Maddie feel threatened, but not enough to be stopped from trying to rescue Jörmun from the pale grip.

“Jörmun! Jörmun please! Don’t give in! She is a huldra. She means no good!” the girl screamed at the top of her lungs as she descended towards the pond.

While Maddie made her way through, she caught glimpse of Jörmun snapping out of the charm he fell into; he looked around in confusion. It was when he finally met Maddie’s eyes that the huldra struck him, leaving him breathless for a moment.

After abandoning the fiery haired one bent in pain, the mystical woman bared her sharp teeth at Maddie. The huldra watched the girl grab a rock from the ground and before she could make a turn to run from it, she got struck. The rock smashed against her head and made her release a deafening screech, as her hands pressed against the fresh wound. The huldra did not engage in any further conflict and instead made herself unseen, dashing through the trees ahead of her, becoming one with the shadows.

“I can’t believe you fell for such. While I, a silly human, would be inclined to believe that beings like her are no more than myths, I expected that you, with your magic and everything, would know better,” Maddie ranted under her breath, partly relieved that the huldra was gone and partly fearing that it may come back; they were better off that place.

The girl approached her travel companion enough to place a hand on his shoulder. She heard no immediate snarky response to her comment, which was concerning.

“Jörmun? Are you all right?”

“H-help me,” he eventually replied in a strangled voice.

It was when Maddie stepped around Jörmun to face him, that she noticed him clutching his hands at the side of his abdomen, while red dripped through his soaked clothing and fingers. The girl’s heart sank at the sight; he had been stabbed. For a moment she stared in disbelief; how could he, who had attempted at fighting Thor, end up on his knees, stabbed by a huldra?

“Oh dear,” she crouched at his side and tried to remove his hands. She wanted to see if there was any sort of weapon left inside the wound, but what she found was far more terrifying; a broken piece of a sharp tail was stuck between Jörmun’s lower ribs.

“Don’t touch it,” he urged. “It’s likely poisoned…” he coughed and spurted out crimson droplets, choking on his breath.

“We are so far away from any hospital,” Maddie cried. Her entire body shook in panic. They were completely isolated. “I will make an emergency call. Maybe they can send a helicopter,” she added and started to frantically search her pockets for the phone.

“He won’t make it until medical help arrives,” a voice sounded from nearby, making the girl jump. She turned around to scout the surroundings. She caught in sight , emerging from the woods, the shape of an old woman in ragged clothes and a stained apron.

“I warn you! I have a knife!” Maddie lied, while gripping her hand around the umbrella in the backpack.

“I want to help you,” the woman offered.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Your friend’s only survival chance,” the woman regarded the two in turns. She pressed her wrinkled lips in a thin smile and stretched out a hand, as if lending her help; the gesture was welcomed with scepticism by Maddie.

The girl’s sole hope was that the woman could slow down the bleeding until proper aid arrived. She prayed that wherever their helper lived, they were going to be shielded from a potential second attack, even if part of her doubted that the huldra would be back, considering her missing tail tip.